Jacqueline Brogan, central station manager at Alarm Detection Systems in Aurora, Ill., is The Monitoring Association’s 2020 Central Station Manager of the Year for her work in leading a team of more than 20 operators. She first joined the team in 2012 as an operator, then became a customer service representative in 2015. She returned to the central station in 2019 to take on her current position.

Traditional security and the smart home are the same. There — I’ve said it. Our industry likes to see them as different, but for someone growing up now, without any preconceptions of alarm systems, they all just look like a lot of gadgets for the home.  So what does this mean for the smart home and traditional alarm monitoring?

When I first entered the security industry in 1973, alarm communications were performed by Direct Wire, McCulloh and some high security applications using voice-grade telephone lines configured in “open window” and later “closed window” bridges.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents numerous unprecedented challenges to the monitoring industry and those with a stake in the protection services it provides. Not the least of these is operating in a regulated environment, under standards that did not fully anticipate the impact of public health mitigations.

At last, 2021 is here — I can’t be the only one happy to leave 2020 in the dust! The year brought so many changes to the business of monitoring, our heads haven’t stopped spinning. With the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment numbers that unfortunately came along with it, providing peace of mind has never been more important.

Micro Key Solutions has launched an all-new program called MKSynergy to serve as the ultimate ‘link’ to alarm dealers’ success. 

The electronic security industry’s national business is subject to regulation by 18,000 local public safety agencies and the government bodies that provide oversight to their activities.

For the last eight years The Monitoring Association’s Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC) has been running an annual communications survey.

Hiring, training and staffing at a monitoring center comes with a host of challenges. Finding reliable, entry-level staff with the right personality profiles that are willing to work any shift, any day of the year is one.

When it comes to running a top-tier monitoring center, the people component is perhaps the biggest factor that can make the difference — in some cases in life or death; but also the overall customer experience.